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Pound Ridge Realtor | Foreclosure Sales Tick Up While Prices Slide
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Daily Archives: August 25, 2011
Chappaqua Realtor | More Housing Trouble as Banks Seek to Sell Foreclosed Inventory – 24/7 Wall St.
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Bedford Corners Realtor | Ackerman bill seeks to jump-start housing market
Armonk Realtor | Philadelphia housing market fares better than many
EMILE WAMSTEKER / Bloomberg NewsToll Bros.’ third-quarter earnings beat analysts’ expectations. "Our sales are gaining some traction, but consumer confidence is still weak, and the housing sector remains in a fragile state," executive chairman Robert I. Toll said.1 of 2LATEST BUSINESS NEWSPosted on Thu, Aug. 25, 2011Philadelphia housing market fares better than many
By Linda Loyd
Inquirer Staff Writer
The U.S. housing market still looks bleak. In July, prices dropped for the third straight month, and sales of new houses dipped yet again. Last week, mortgage applications fell off after Wall Street’s wild ride, though interest rates remained very low.
But in the Philadelphia region, local observers say, things aren’t looking so bad, which has been the case through much of the real estate bust.
New-home sales here are sluggish just like everywhere else, said economist Kevin Gillen of Econsult Corp., but Philadelphia’s market isn’t plagued by large inventory the way Sun Belt cities such as Las Vegas and Phoenix are.
“We have not seen the catastrophic declines in new-home prices or new-home sales that a lot of other areas have,” Gillen said.
John Mangano, Toll Bros. group president for Philadelphia, Bucks, and Montgomery Counties, said this market was “holding its own.” Sales at Toll’s Naval Square, a mix of condos and town houses at 24th and Bainbridge Streets, are strong, and building of single-family houses in the suburbs is steady, he said.
“Of course, everybody knows it’s slow,” Mangano added, but there are still buyers out there. “People sitting on the fence for a long time are making moves every day.”
The Philadelphia market “has never boomed like other areas, and it’s never hit the lows of other areas, either,” he said.
Toll released its fiscal third-quarter earnings Wednesday, beating analysts’ expectations. The company reported net income of $42.1 million, or 25 cents a share, compared with $27.3 million, or 16 cents a share, in the prior-year three months ended July 31. Net income rose 54 percent, helped partly by a $38.2 million tax benefit. Revenue from houses delivered dropped 13 percent, to $394.3 million. The backlog of houses at the end of the quarter increased 8 percent, to $1.02 billion.
“Our sales are gaining some traction, but consumer confidence is still weak, and the housing sector remains in a fragile state,” executive chairman Robert I. Toll said.
The Federal Housing Finance Agency reported Wednesday that home prices fell 5.9 percent nationwide in the second quarter from a year earlier, the biggest drop since 2009, as foreclosures added to the inventory of properties for sale. The Mortgage Bankers Association said applications dropped 2.4 percent last week, hitting a 15-year low.
Those details followed dismal numbers from the Commerce Department, which said Tuesday that sales of new homes across the country fell nearly 1 percent in July. If that pace continued, 2011 would be the slowest year since 1963.
Why has Philadelphia fared better than some markets?
“We didn’t build as much during the boom as a lot of other metropolitan areas, in terms of new houses,” Gillen said. “Where we did build a lot is Center City condos.”
The condo market remains “a relative glut” and “is still struggling the most,” he said.
“We added about 11,000 to 12,000 new condo units to our stock during the past decade,” roughly doubling the number. But the local market hasn’t suffered like places such as Miami and Las Vegas, where “you have ghost towers of condos – 100 units and maybe 10 of them are occupied,” Gillen said.
Today, he said, there is pent-up demand among young households, singles, and empty-nester baby boomers to move to Center City. “It’s a lifestyle choice largely independent of the economy.”
Still, low consumer confidence and a national jobless rate of more than 9 percent stymies real estate recovery.
“It has been a roller-coaster ride,” South Jersey home builder Bruce Paparone said, adding that 2008 was the low point.
Business “isn’t dropping,” but the economy has not instilled “enough confidence in the consumer to say there’s an appreciable difference,” Paparone said. “We go through periods where we gain traction, and there are positive signs, and we get a push of sales.”
Lately, he said, he has seen “some customers coming back, showing some interest, especially with these low mortgage rates. This past weekend, we saw some real interest coming back into the model homes.”
Toll Bros. CEO Douglas C. Yearley said his company’s position was strong in the metro Washington-to-Boston corridor and its high-rise business in metro New York City.
Toll is considering expansion in Washington, Boston, and Philadelphia.
“Looking forward, historic low interest rates and the growing imbalance between housing production and demographics-driven demand bode well for the industry sooner or later,” Yearley said in a conference call. “The key question, of course, is when.”
Contact staff writer Linda Loyd
at 215-854-2831 or lloyd@phillynews.com.
via philly.com
D-FW home foreclosure filings fall 19%
North Texas home foreclosures are continuing to retreat from the record highs set last year.
Foreclosure filings for September are down 19 percent from a year ago, the seventh month in a row that foreclosure postings in the Dallas-Fort Worth area have fallen year-over-year.
Foreclosure filings in the D-FW area have now been lower in 10 of the last 12 months, according to the latest data from Foreclosure Listing Service.
For next month’s foreclosure auctions, lenders have scheduled 4,774 homes for forced sale. So far in 2011, home foreclosure filings are down 12 percent from the same period last year.
“For the first time in 11 years, year-to-date residential postings declined,” said George Roddy, president of the Addison-based foreclosure tracking firm.
Some of the declines may be due to delays by lenders in processing the foreclosures, Roddy said.
Late loan payment rates, while improved from a year ago, remain high.
With September’s foreclosure sales filings, the biggest decline is in Denton County, where they are down 28 percent. Foreclosure postings were 19 percent lower in Dallas County.
So far in 2011, 42,380 homes in the four-county area have been threatened with foreclosure. That’s down from more than 48,000 foreclosure filings at the same time last year.
Mount Kisco Homes | Real estate agents: Get a tax break for your work clothes | Inman News
Real estate agents: Get a tax break for your work clothes
Real Estate Tax Talk
Q: I became a real estate agent this last year and I have heard from other agents that I can write off things like clothing and getting my hair done because I have to keep up a professional appearance at all times. Is this true?
A: The rule is that you can deduct the cost of clothing as a business expense only if:
- It is essential for your business;
- It is not suitable for ordinary street wear; and
- You don’t wear the clothing outside of business.
For example, the Internal Revenue Service has permitted business deductions for the cost of uniforms or special work clothes not suitable for personal wear, such as nurse’s uniforms, theatrical costumes, and clothing with a company logo.
Thus, you cannot deduct the cost of a regular business suit or other clothing that you can wear outside of business. However, if you purchase clothing with a real estate company logo on it, you may deduct the cost because it is not suitable outside of business. If your clothing is deductible, you may also deduct the cost of dry cleaning and other care.
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North Salem Homes | 5 social media practices that pay off | Inman News
5 social media practices that pay off
Trends from Real Estate Connect San Francisco conference
What are the trends that will influence your real estate business now and throughout the next few years? What does it take to succeed in today’s fast-paced real estate environment? If you want to stay ahead of the curve and dominate your competitors, here are some of the latest cutting-edge ideas from this year’s Real Estate Connect in San Francisco.
1. Engage or die
It’s no longer sufficient to have a profile page on Facebook or LinkedIn. Sharing information has given way to engaging in meaningful conversations with your friends and followers. As one Connect speaker put it, “The ‘@’ sign is the universal sign of engagement.”To make sure you maximize your return from social media, begin by spending the first two weeks just listening to what others are saying on their social media pages. This means that you must go where your potential clients go rather than expecting them to come to you. Next, notice what captures their attention and what is ignored. At that point, you are ready to begin engaging by commenting on what others say.
2. Geotarget your responses
Today’s consumers want rich information about the neighborhood and the lifestyle where they will live. In fact, The Corcoran Group, winner of an Inman News Innovator of the Year award for its Foursquare app, experienced an increase in response rates of eight to 10 times when it began using geotargeted marketing.To take advantage of this trend in your business, review your closed transactions for the last 12 months to determine which areas are your top two generators of closed transactions. These two areas are a great place to focus your geotargeting efforts since you are already having success there.
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